Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Historicon 2015: Tales from the Gnome Front

Gaming with the Gnomies on-the-scene reporter Kermit the... err, I mean Mike Lung has returned from Historicon unscathed and with plenty of Gnome Wars pictures!﻿

Most of the Gnome Wars games held a prominent spot on the Miniatures Building Authority "Castle" table again this year although not the normal arrangement I was accustomed to.

In Mike's own words:

...the set up was the same for all. Attached are pics of that game. Basically, the German held castle was under siege by a huge force. Some of the attackers were immediately outside of the castle and others had to funnel through the town to make their assault. However, the defenders had one nasty thing in their favor, a hoard of zombies and skeletons formed a buffer between them castle walls and the attackers!

Also, there was a band of evil Urinitius cultist operating in the area planning to summon even more undead. At the end of the 3rd battle, the castle did eventually fall to the attackers. But only after lots and lots of gnomish carnage. The attached pics are from the 2nd battle.

The German Defenders

The German Defenders

The view from the parapets...

The full-length table view

Culitists doing a strange ritual!

The Znombies are summoned!!!

The end of the first episode of "The Walking Gnome"

Steven Stanton, Jim Stanton's son, was the offical game master for these games, giving his old man a

nice semi-retirement (he is getting a bit old and feeble). He won the Young Guns trophy for best kid friendly game! Kudos Steven!

There were two additional Gnome Wars games over the weekend, both with new game masters, Erin Crouch and Robert Clarke. Erin’s game was on Saturday morning in a beautiful Middle Eastern town (non-MBA), with lots of house-to-house fighting, but I was unable to get pictures. Any pictures of that would be greatly appreciated.

On Sunday afternoon, at the same time as Steven's Gnome Wars finale, young Robert Clarke, held a gnome game in his nicely done pumpkin patch. There were 6 gnome factions, each had to gather pumpkins while fighting off znombies, pumpkin headed zombies, vicious giant pumpkins that shot seeds like a machine gun and the other gnome factions! There were a lot of squished gnomes and over turned trucks from crazy gnomish driving. Lots of carnage overall. Finally, it was down to a father (Bruce with Germans) and son (Cedric with Leprechauns) who had to turn on each other to see who would be the pumpkin king. The son eventually won. But I think everyone had fun. Nice to see two new gnomish game masters at this con.

﻿

The Pumpkin Patch.... of DOOM?

Mr Clarke, the GM, next to the winner, Cedric.

I'm particularly happy to see such a young game master taking the game by the reigns and running with it. Sure, he'll be doing micro-armor or the new craze 12mm Napoleonics in twenty years, but you need get your GM licks in somewhere. If you can run a successful game at Historicon, you're pretty much good against all comers.

I'm also impressed by the different interpretations each new GM brings to the world of gnomes. Don't get me wrong, a Stanton/Stout Gnomes production of Gnome Wars is a tour de force. The Cold Wars mega-games may be large, loud, and chaotic, but they usually cover a historical event and we (the Stout Gnomes) try to educate the players on the history of the actual battles, without the Leprechauns, Cheese Throwers, and occasional undead.

Mike skipped the other two "official" Gnome Wars games to play something called "historical" gaming (probably won't catch on... sounds weird) with the Great Northern War

...and in one of the always popular soccer games. The Man U goalie rolled snake eyes on an easy save in the last seconds of the game with Man City, allowing the ball to dribble into the goal. The game ended in an insufferable 2-2 tie.

About Me

I'm a very happy (and happily married) father of two beautiful little girls named Maja and Amelia. Maja bit the gaming bug with Gnome Wars at the age of two, and has kept going ever since.
I've been at just about every end of the gaming industry (save distribution, I just had connections). Store employee, manager, company demo guy, writer, publisher, reviewer, painter, con staff and organizer.